Ok, so I started a new nursing job...I still have my school job, cause I love it so much...but I started prn at the nursing home...on a 4 hour shift....7p-11p. Usually will be just 2 shifts a week.
I was afraid I was gonna loose my nursing skills and knowledge...I mean, if you don't use it, you loose it, right...and the extra money can't never hurt :D
So, I went to work the other night for the first time...since I had worked there before, I felt like I had been in a coma for awhile and had woke up...It was like everything was so familiar and that I was supposed to know it, but couldn't bring it to the front of my memory...wierd...but I had fun and loved it...
I went into the last room on my medicine round...There was this little debilitated man in the bed...unable to talk, or barely move. I immediately fell in love with him. I checked his chart later and found out he was just on comfort measures...soon to die...anytime...he wasn't even getting any medications...too close to death...
His eyes were open...I held his hand and talked softly to him. He knew I was there...
I frequently went into the room as his room was next door to the nursing station. I talked to him, fixed his cover, and noted how dry his tongue was,so I did mouth care...with lemon glycerin swabs...and cold water..he liked it...his mouth responded to it...Iheld his hand, rubbed his head...I was just touched by this gentleman. There were no family there...I later found out he didn't have any. No children, wife dead...so sad!
Upon reading the chart, I noted that he had had a terrible life...His father had beaten his mother and made him and his brother work in the fields by the time they were 5 years old. If they didn't work, he didn't feed them...He got in a fight with his dad for taking up for his mother when his dad was beating her in his teen years and he left home...he went to Japan in the war...and stated how he had to do some really terrible things there that he could not forget....he described himself as a bitter, angry man. That was not the man I saw lying in the bed. The skinny debilitated frame had a gentle face. I would like to know what kind of relationship he and his wife had had. Why did they not have children? Was he afraid of how he would treat them? How did he treat his wife...was he a great loving husband because of the way he had seen his father treat his mother? His wife died in the 80's and he had no one to take care of him since then. He obviously was still in good health at that time, because the record stated he had taken care of her when she had cancer. Was it after she died that he became a bitter angry man?? Tom said I would have really liked him, cause he had been at the nursing home for a couple of years. He had to come there because he had no one to take care of him.
Okay, so to get along with my story...as I was sitting on the couch with Tom the next afternoon,I mentioned him to Tom and how I was concerned about his care...Tom reponded with:
It doesn't matter now...
What do you mean?
He's dead...
Well, I know he is going to die anytime...but...
No, I mean..he died last night...
WHAT!!!!!!!!??????????
This totally floored me...I was looking forward to going back in there and babying him some...something he probably hadn't ever had...you know...
I dreamed about him last night...that I was feeding him corn flakes with big red stawberries in it...and you know what else...who even cares that he died...
so I guess by blogging here...he will never be forgotten...remebered by me...
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